The TV show Sherlock prompted an interesting question about the historical role of women during the United Kingdom's road to women's suffrage.

In the episode "The Abominable Bride" (set in Victorian London in 1895), there was a scene where Mrs. Watson says that she is part of a campaign to give women the right to vote:

MRS WATSON: I’m part of a campaign, you know.

LESTRADE: Oh yeah? Campaign?

MRS WATSON: Votes for Women.

LESTRADE: And are you – are you for or against?

MRS WATSON (sternly pointing to the stairs): Get out.

The scene was played for laughs with the joke being that Lestrade should have realized his question was misplaced; being a woman of course she would want the right to vote.

But this made me wonder; were there women in this era who historically were against giving women the right to vote? If so, what were their reasons?

I am interested in either organized campaigns led by women or prominent women who held this view. I'd like to know about UK movements, but similar movements outside of the UK would be interesting supplementary information too.

10 Answers
10

Strange at it may seem, there was a movement called "anti-suffragism" in the U.S. and U.K. composed mainly of women. Their numbers were small, since this posture would have been "counterintuitive."

The Americans were composed mainly of "conservative" women who liked the division of duties and society between "domestic" (for women), and "outside," for men. On the other side were radicals like Emma Goldman, who favored "anarchism," instead of working within the system, through suffrage.

I would expect anarchists to oppose all suffrage, so I'm not sure if that really fits to being against women's suffrage.
– gerritJul 19 '16 at 9:28

12

regarding Emma Goldman and temperance... from wikipedia it seems that her objection was the opposite - that giving women the vote would lead to temperance (which presumably she rejected on anarchist grounds): "The anarchist Emma Goldman opposed suffragism on the grounds that women were more inclined toward legal enforcement of morality"
– AnentropicJul 19 '16 at 13:20

1

Actually, I wouldn't remove the temperance reference - if anything, it's an example of a reason a woman might have to reject suffrage, which is something the OP has asked for. Just make sure to make it correct - while she didn't like the idea of voting in the first place (being an anarchist), she opposed woman voting even more, since she thought it would make everything even worse. In other words, just because everyone gets a vote on the power to violently order people around doesn't make the violence justified or moral.
– LuaanJul 19 '16 at 14:31

1

I heard a few such stories. I wouldn't be surprised if it is a rational consideration from a belief that women are unsuitable to govern. I'm discussing history not politics. That belief existed.
– JoshuaJul 19 '16 at 15:11

2

@BCLC I beg to differ. A person takes a political stance regardless of their motivation for it. Also I'm sure lots of people who are against gay marriage would respond falsely that they are not against marriage, and this is due to a logical fallacy in reasoning.
– user19595Jul 23 '16 at 4:46

Yes, there were. And at the beginning of the women's suffrage movement, suffragettes were viewed by most women as oddities rather than heroic liberators.

Basically, centuries ago, due to the technological and economical environment, the family as a unit was much more important than how many people view it today. It was close to impossible to survive (and especially to lead a decent life) alone, especially for a woman. There was no male conspiracy to oppress women. It's just how society formed to optimally face the challenges of their own time period. There were many women during history who had important roles in society, leading back to medieval and even ancient times.

Women during the suffragette movement who were against women's suffrage were not just religious fanatics or extremely conservative. There were many well-educated and influential women who were against women entering the realm of politics.

Most of the female leaders of the anti-suffrage movement, says
Goodier, “were earnest, intelligent, often educated and professional
women who sincerely believed that women, and the nation-state, would
suffer when women achieved political equality with men.”

Central to the movement was the then-prevalent notion that in order to
be functional, prosperous and pleasant, American society required men
and women to operate in separate spheres of influence: public life for
men, and domestic life for women. These realms aligned with what were
regarded as the inherent natural strengths of each sex. Women, who
were considered nurturers, moral guardians, and peacekeepers, were
expected to guide the moral development of the next generation by
presiding over family and the home. (“Women is queen, indeed,” wrote
Roman Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons, quoted in an anti-suffrage
pamphlet, “but her empire is the domestic kingdom.”)

“Most nineteenth-century commentators saw strict differentiation
between the roles of women and men as crucial to the proper
functioning of the nation,” writes Goodier in No Votes for Women.
“Anti-suffragists subscribed to the belief that women’s power base,
the private home, was equivalent to the masculine power base in the
public realm.”

When we analyze an earlier time period, we have to take care to also study it from their own perspective, taking into account all the socioeconomic factors and all the constraints of the level of technology they had back then, and its effects on daily life. Judging them solely from a modern, (or even utopian) viewpoint only leads to finding them either bizarre or evil, just like how they would view us if they didn't understand all the context which made our current civilization look like it is.

Moreover, I would suggest that many from that time, if they could observe our culture today, would only be strengthened in their convictions.
– user8493Jul 25 '16 at 11:59

4

(-1) An alternative between a "male conspiracy to oppress women" and a "formed to optimally face the challenges of their own time period" is way too simplistic. Also, the answer is based on a rather crude technological determinism. You write that we have to study past societies "from their own perspective" but that's not what you are doing, as you leave no space for culture at all in your explanation.
– RelaxedJul 26 '16 at 2:54

6

@Relaxed : the question asked whether they existed, and this answer just says that yes, they existed, with a possible justification for their motivation. Of course, there were and are motivations for women's suffrage, but the question was about against it. I guess listing arguments in favor of women's suffrage would make the answer off-topic.
– vszJul 26 '16 at 6:10

Not only were there women who opposed suffrage, there still are. For instance, here's Central Missisippi Tea Party President Janis Lane in 2012:

I'm really going to set you back here. Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote. [...] Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I'd much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.

Splendid but do you have any examples from historical movements for women right to vote in UK or in any other country?
– NSNoobJul 21 '16 at 5:31

2

That seemed to have been covered sufficiently by the other answers, although quickly looking over the page they don't seem to have mentioned Gertrude Bell, Mrs. Humphry Ward, or others in the (British) Women's National Suffrage League.
– Daniel McLauryJul 21 '16 at 6:28

Kent was against giving women the right to vote immediately, arguing that, as Spanish women lacked at that moment social and political education enough to vote responsibly, they would be very much influenced by the Catholic priests, damaging left wing parties.

It's worth noting that she lost the debate, and women were allowed to vote in the 1933 elections. The right wing won.
– OriolJul 21 '16 at 18:44

5

It was the same in France. For a long time the revolutionary left wouldn't give women the right to vote because they estimated that women would vote for monarchist parties.
– ShautiehJul 23 '16 at 7:35

In France, there was also the fact that voting rights had been linked to military conscription at some point. At the very least, some anti-voting right feared that once women got the right to vote, they would have to join military services like men.
– MakorDalDec 10 '19 at 9:24

So a decade and a half ago, here in Kansas, we had a Senator named Kay O'Connor, a woman, who opposed women's right to vote. You can find all sorts of quotes from this individual around the internet, but this article sums it up pretty well.

"Sen. Kay O'Connor recently told the co-presidents of the Johnson
County League of Women Voters that the amendment was the first step in
a decades-long erosion of traditional family values."

I guess somewhere along the lines, the definition of "traditional family values" is needed, but from remaining context, she means that men work (and vote) while women tend house (and don't vote).

"'Wasn't it in the best interest of our country to give women the
right to vote?' Furtado asked the senator.

'Not necessarily so,' O'Connor said."

and lastly:

Asked if she supports the 19th Amendment, the Republican lawmaker
responded: "I'm an old-fashioned woman. Men should take care of women,
and if men were taking care of women (today) we wouldn't have to vote.

Voting(at least in the US) was originally designed to revolve around land owner(freeholder) families. So the intention was that someone who was pulled together enough(paid taxes-as there was no income tax, had a legitimate interest in the community and most likely wasn't beholden to the very rich) to own property free and clear was the type of person who should vote, and that person's vote would represent their entire family's(and slaves/workers) view point.

So in the US it was more of an argument about the family vs the individual and in fact this discussion is still continuing today revolving around the equal rights amendment (http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/history.htm) - supported by the excellent historical figure Alice Paul. This amendment would (potentially) remove things like tax breaks for married couples among other things, and so has a group of people, especially women, who oppose it. eg http://www.eagleforum.org/era/

Of course there were some women opposed. My mother was one. Her opinion, which I can neither validate nor invalidate, was that women gave up many more intangible rights than they gained in tangible rights. In her view women were the mistress (read "master") of the home prior to the change. Being on "equal footing" with men meant giving up what she perceived as an advantage. Just FYI, she held a master's degree in Special Education and was a single parent head of household after my father died. So it would be an error to assume she was just some ignorant housewife. In truth she was a lot smarter than I ever gave her credit for in life. I had to approach retirement age myself before catching on to that. In this opinion, I just don't have her frame of reference to know if she was right or wrong.

There are already several good answers, but it seems that nobody has mentioned the obvious yet: The most famous and most powerful woman in 1895 in UK (and on Earth) was Queen Victoria, aka "Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India."

Her opposition to women's vote and her hatred for suffragettes seem to have been constant during her reign.

unsex’ themselves by claiming equality with men they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.

Most of her daughters were not agreeing with Victoria on that stance, e.g.:

Princess Louise in particular was associated with suffragist circles. She met privately with suffragists and expressed regret that she could not support them publicly because of her mother, Queen Victoria’s opposition to women’s suffrage.

The prestige and the influence of the Queen on British citizens as a whole and conservative circles in particular must have led many women to follow her opinion on this subject.

If you follow democracy a bit, you'll know that there were women like that without requiring explicit proof.

There are immigrants who advocate a stronger stance on immigration.

There are officers who want to spend less money on the military.

There are minimum wage workers who are opposed to a higher minimum wage.

I'm wondering if there's a friendly commenter who knows what psychologists call this phenomenon?

Also, it's sometimes easy to forget that people think in a democracy. So when they failed to allow women the right to vote, there must have been some arguments against it which made sense to a majority of the male population - the same arguments will have been known to the female population.

The thing is, there's plenty of reasons why each of those is a net benefit to the voter. For example, a higher minimum wage might mean that you're going to be unemployed, rather than a minimum age worker. If you're already an immigrant, you might want to reduce other immigrants from coming in and lowering your value on the market. Officers might want to get rid of potential competition, or just improve the economy of the military - there's certainly a lot of waste that could be cut off. The same way, voting was a huge responsibility - something that required you to take a firm stance.
– LuaanJul 19 '16 at 20:03

@Luaan If there's a hotly debated issue, like women's rights, there are are always plenty of reasons for and against, even if 50 years later it seems like most of the reasons of one side were invalid.
– PeterJul 19 '16 at 20:10

12

Of course. You only need to look at men voting for an example - that took a lot longer than a few hundred years to establish :) A 16th century guy from central Europe would tell you you're crazy to allow people, all people, including poor people to vote on the matters of state. That's what the king is for, and his advisers, and perhaps the big land owners. You're not smart enough or motivated enough to lead a country. After all, if you were smart enough to lead a country, how come you're poor and not rich, right?
– LuaanJul 19 '16 at 20:14

3

This is not an answer to the question. Might be an interesting question in its own right.
– Mark C. Wallace♦Jul 20 '16 at 11:46

1

@Peter: Regarding a name for the phenomenon; how about Gallino-Christmophilia, or, the Turkey-who-looked-forward-to-Christmas Syndrome.
– Oscar BravoJul 22 '16 at 9:32

psychologically speaking, people generally like to feel good about who they are and the choices they have already made. frequently that makes the opponents of social change people who have either resigned to it, or who will lose relative social standing. therefore married women who had relinquished control to their husbands would sometimes oppose the female suffrage movement because it would disproportionately benefit unmarried women upon whom the married women could currently regard with pity and/or contempt. also, these married women might have internalized their husband's political positions simply because they were resigned to not having a right to disagree.

That's a very fine perspective but do you have any examples from history in this regard?
– NSNoobJul 21 '16 at 5:29

i admit my answer was more about psychology than history, but i felt the perspective was worth noting with an answer-level response rather than a comment. the phenomenon was more obvious in the "bleeding kansas" politics of american slavery. wherein the mostly non-slave owning "border ruffians" were the most vocal supporters of slavery. it is difficult to explain their motivation psychologically without concluding they simply wished to be "above" slaves on the social ladder. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Ruffian
– james turnerJul 21 '16 at 16:46

i upvoted it because it is indeed an interesting point.At this point, women were in English Law, pretty much chattels and expected to toe the line.
– bigbadmouseDec 10 '19 at 9:13